| dc.description.abstract | The Nova Scotia Provincial Blood Coordinating Program operates under the Department of Health and Wellness. The Program is pivotal in providing collaboration between blood and blood products distributor (Canadian Blood Services) and transfusion health care providers.
Since its inception the Program evolved from one person to 14 employees and the number of the initiatives has significantly increased. The Program has reached a point where it became essential to develop a formalized approval process for all of the Program’s initiatives to ensure that all tasks performed are aligned with the Program’s strategy. Consistency across processes with ability to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies will ensure better performance. A formalized and documented process will ensure better knowledge transfer and regulatory compliance.
Literature review lead to the use of Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), with emphasis on the simplest most possible solution. Process workflows often look good on paper, but if they are not easy to use, they never get adopted. If adoption is forced upon, productivity is not necessarily improved.
Work included thorough and comprehensive analysis of the existing processes. Understanding of the regulatory constraints was mandatory. Institutional structure, and employees’ roles and responsibilities had to be fully understood. This was achieved through the series of the interviews and studying of the existing documentation. Organization’s strategy document, in conjunction with desire for the optimized performance, was a central focus. Special attention was paid to develop the process as simple and as minimal as possible. Only necessary steps are included. Every step is self-descriptive and clear, with concise and precise notation.
With usability as a main guideline, a simple to follow process was developed. A parallel process flowchart, with the actual employees’ names, was developed, to aid understanding and the adoption.
A final output is the Program’s Approval Process Policy. The policy follows organization’s policy guidelines and describes the approval process, includes the approval process form, and the flowchart. Presentation to the staff and training are the parts of the project. | en_US |
